and should have hesitated to accept. From what might have been a misguided conception I was thus saved by some influence which I had not anticipated.
But if I had not voluntarily gone to church and partaken of communion, this blessing would not have come to me.
Fate bestows its rewards on those who put themselves in the proper attitude to receive them.
During my service in Washington I had seen a large amount of government business. Peace had been made with the Central Powers, the tariff revised, the budget system adopted, taxation reduced, large payments made on the national debt, the Veterans' Bureau organized, important farm legislation passed, public expenditures greatly decreased, the differences with Colombia of twenty years' standing composed, and the Washington Conference had reached an epoch-making agreement for the practical limitation of naval armaments.
It would be difficult to find two years of peacetime history in all the record of our republic that were marked with more important and far-reaching accomplishments. From my position as President of
